Prisoner TR3112
by bugsfic
Summary: They release the prisoners at dawn.


_Spoilers through S3.8_

* * *

"_You're_ John Bates?"

"Yes, sir. Prisoner number TR3112."

I looked over the lump of a man leaning on the doorjamb for support. Another gray-faced prisoner with rough stubble on his sagging cheeks, but his eyes were alight in the dim cell. They all had that expression the day that they were released. Not so much the day they come back for another stretch.

"Get in here then and strip down. A boy dropped off a change of clothes for you."

That had been unusual. Typically the wife brought a few things in a sack when she arrived, but an impressive set of brown paper-wrapped packages had arrived yesterday by courier, with a battered wood cane tied securely to the largest package.

His pale face brightened at the sight of it. He limped heavily over to the table holding the items and tugged the cane loose. He leaned on it with a long sigh.

With a limp of my own, given to me by just such a brute, I had no sympathy. My drive to become the prison's next governor had been stopped by a shiv's blade, relegating me to nothing more but a glorified office clerk, sorting through the illiterate scribbling of the prisoners' correspondence.

He undid the first package's thick twine and folded back the paper. Atop was a cake of soap wrapped in cellophane. It sat on two thick towels. A set of smalls were folded under them.

"Is there water?" he asked, looking around. I nodded to a full pail and empty chipped enamel pan by the table. He dipped his fingers into the pail.

"Is there_ hot_ water?" he asked next, his tone becoming even more imperious.

"No."

Starting to unbutton his overshirt, he said, "Excuse me."

"Did yah fart?" I shot back with a sneer.

He glanced to the ajar cell door. "Would you excuse me?" His voice was rich and a bit posh if laced with the Irish, which made me hate him more.

"No." I crossed my arms. "We're to watch."

There was the flash of the criminal; the reason he was here. "What the hell for?" he growled. "You look up our bums when we come in; why do you need to do it now that I'm leaving?"

"Smuggling notes out," I drawled. I check my pocket watch. "Hurry it up, Bates. I've got another chap after you. He wants to get out of here too."

Clenching his jaw, he disrobed quickly, only staggering a bit when he pulls his pants off and his scarred and twisted leg was revealed. The faded discoloration on the scars shows it had been years since the injury, too long to have been from the Great War.

He turned his back to me, showing me his ass, I assumed as an insult. Taking up the smaller towel, he dunked it in the water and opened the soap. A strong musk filled the air, covering the stench of men's unwashed skin, boiled cabbage and harsh bleach. It was the smell of Bond Street shops, and I wondered if that wife of his stole it from their patron, the Earl of Grantham.

Naked, gray-fleshed with a matting of dark hair over his limbs and chest, he was hardly the Adonis to inspire a woman to passion and to toss away her morals.

_...my love, if only we'd gone away as I begged you, leaving that woman behind to burn in her own dark hell. We would be far off in our own little cottage-no prison cells or servants quarters. By now I would have had your child and we would be so very happy. I needed no ring or ceremony, just you and our love. From this day forward, John Bates, you will listen to me, for I know what's best for us. And it's our love and only that, not what anyone would think or my position in the world. _

The prisoner washed his face and limbs first, then efficiently cleaned his armpits and genitals before sitting on the one rickety chair and scrubbing his feet. After drying off, he tossed the towel to the floor onto which to stand with his clean feet. Finding a comb in the assorted accoutrements, he wet it and carefully combed his hair, only to have it flop back over his broad forehead. Rubbing his jaw, he peered at me from under his heavy brow.

"A shave?"

"No."

Muttering under his breath, he shook out his underpants, shockingly snowy white in the dim cell. Supporting himself on the table, he pulled them on and buttoned the flap. Next went on the undershirt, carefully tucked into the waist of the pants. He sat again to put on garters. Then he rolled on sheer socks.

_...the only advantage of you being gone is that I getting ahead of you on socks. You wore out socks faster than I could knit, but now I've got four pair waiting for your return, three black and one brown for your favorite suit. Did I ever tell you of the time that Mrs. Hughes brought me into her sitting room to have a frank talk about how I knitted you socks? She found it scandalous and forward of me. We weren't betrothed yet, but of course, she knew something was going on. She has a sense about every girl under her care and the direction her heart is leaning. Those socks worried her a great deal!_

_But my love, I'd so much rather have holey socks to mend than you not here. I shall endeavor..._

He opened the second, largest package, and revealed charcoal gray trousers on the top. Whoever had packed the items had placed the garments in order for him to dress. After fastening braces to the trousers, he pulled them on. He carefully removed pins and a cardboard form from the dress shirt and lay it on the table to attach the stiff collar with a stud at the back. I could smell the starch across the room. After pulling the shirt on over his head, he smoothed the tails into his pants, taking particular care to pleat them evenly before buttoning up. Slipping the elastic braces over his shoulders, he tightened them snugly.

_In my moments of madness, my beautiful girl, I wish we hadn't had our one night, for now I'm tormented every day by the memories. The intoxicating scent of you, the wet pearl sheen of your glowing skin, your breath at my ear as you cry out... _

I'd blacked out most of the remaining passages before sending the letter onto his wife, and her reply had given me quite the laugh.

_I can only guess what you wrote to make the gaoler mark it all out! You are very naughty to deny me when every one of your words is so precious to me! Promise me that you will have more restraint in the future. I must have all your thoughts to hold close until my next visit. But only the pure ones. You can save the others for when you are home._

Opening a small felt bag, he shook out a pair of highly polished cufflinks, the bright metal winking in the low light. Folding back his stiffly starched cuffs, first the left, then the right, he laced the links through the holes and secured them. The vest was next, and he tightened the strap at his back before opening a larger felt bag that held a pocket watch, chain and fob.

Dexterously for such large hands, Bates fastened a collar stud at his throat. From the diminishing stack of clothing, he lifted a deep blue silk tie and smoothed it in his fingers, only to furrow his brow when his calloused skin snared on the fine fabric. Draping it around his neck, he looked about and spotted the tiny square of polished steel on the wall that served as a mirror. With a few quick flips of his thick wrists, the tie was knotted and tightened. He snapped down his collar and checked it in the reflection.

_...The gardens must be blooming at Downton now. We have nothing but a few weeds in the yard that are stomped upon as soon as they can open, but in my mind, I'm strolling through the herb knots holding your basket as you gather lavender. Or to pick the lilacs with you in the far glen where no one can see me steal a kiss as sweet as their scent. How I want to stroke your neck again with the season's first rose bloom before you chide me and put them in your basket..._

His shoes were wrapped in a separate piece of paper from his clothing. Although polished to a blinding sheen, the right one was worn in the tell-tale pattern of the cripple's gait. He sat again to lace them up.

_Yes, my dearest John, I have been in the gardens. But as I am no poet such as you, I can only recount that I have three thorn pricks in my right thumb and am very put out about it. I shall think of you though, next time I am to choose blooms for her Ladyship to arrange, and will pick a few of those black lilies, for they remind me of you, with their dark petals but bright hearts, and how they smell of spice and port wine. Oh my, perhaps you can bring out the bard in me!_

Finally his suit coat was tugged on and buttoned all the way up. He shot his cuffs, turning his wrists to assure a prescribed length of white fabric was revealed. A bright handkerchief was folded atop a dark overcoat. He flipped it outward to billow the fine linen, and quickly tucked it into his breast pocket before it wrinkled. One more sharp glance in the mirror to assure that just two pointed corners peeked out. Out of the brown paper wrapping, he lifted the overcoat and pulled on the heavy weight.

There was a black hat box which he opened last of all. A bowler was removed and he checked the angle in the mirror after putting it on. He picked an indecipherable bit of lint from his sleeve and turned to me.

A completely different man from the prisoner who'd entered the cell stood before me. He seemed taller and stronger, all the dawn's blue hard edge and bright light. Perhaps his wife was right. He could make a poet out of any of us.

"Will you be taking the paper and boxes?"

He glanced at his debris. "I think not. Would you like it? Got to be of some use."

I didn't want the things after he offered, but I knew that Mother would like the paper to line her shelves and the box could hold her overflowing collection of embroidery silks. "Thank you," I grumbled. "But you'll be taking your personal things?"

"I'll want my letters and books," he said quickly. "Nothing else."

"Of course."

He squinted at me and for a heart-stopping moment, I thought he knew that I was the one who read the letters.

"Well, best be going. My wife is coming for me." His smile was from another place. Not this dim warren of cells.

"Yes."

His cane clacked slowly away and I folded up all the paper, tucking it all in the hatbox before echoing the cripple's footfall to return to my office. I had a view of the outer square by the front gate. After storing away my booty under my desk, I wandered to the window to check the weather. The dawn was overcast, but it looked to be breaking soon.

I remove the letter I'd had in my pocket. When his mail had finally been released to be sent on, I'd kept it back. I'd considered giving it to him today because I had no use for it.

_My dear Anna, it's been many weeks since I've heard from you. I hope that if you were ill or had met some tragedy, Mrs. Hughes or his Lordship would have written me, so I dare not entertain such dark thoughts. But if you've decided to go on with your life, I can find nothing but joy for you. You're too bright of a soul to be kept shaded by my misfortune. You deserve only happiness and love-real love, with days of kisses and caresses, not a fleeting hour spent not touching across a table. Never think that you've failed me in any way by moving on. Know that you gave me more happiness than I ever deserved in our time together..._

What a bleeding sop. Crumbling the envelope, I tossed it in the trash bin. He'd not want it now that he was free.

A grand motor steered by a chauffeur stopped outside the gate. The door in the prison gate opened and Bates stuck his head out, the badger unsure of the day's promise. At the sight of him, the auto's door flung open and a girl jumped out, only to stop and wait. Spotting her, he stepped over the door's sill, the fancy gent in his expensive overcoat and brightly shined shoes. She dashed to him. While he'd hardly been the romantic figure from their letters, at least she looked to be a pretty Yorkshire lass, blonde and neat of figure.

He swept off his hat and caught her in his arms, and he gave that smile again, a free man at last.

_My dearest John, I do not think of all we've lost. Our own home, children with your laughing eyes, one more walk down by the lower pastures out of everyone's sight and minds. I think of the day you will come out of that gate that I pass through for every visit. You will come to me, John Bates. You will. You came to me once, when I never expected to find such a man. You knocked and no one answered so you pushed right into my life. I know you will again because you love me. And I love you. Your eternal one, Anna._

_...I'm not as strong as you are, Anna. I never will be. I do want to lie with you again. And again. And again. Breathe the skin between your lovely breasts. Taste your whispers on my tongue, sweet and salty, tart and musky. Be enveloped by your heat until I am ashes. _

_But greedy beast that I am, I want even more. I want to sit beside you every meal and talk of your day. I want to help with your day's mending. To steady your step over puddles as we walk to church. I want you, as no man has ever wanted a woman. _

_~end_


End file.
